


The Last Five Years

by Fitzsimmonshield (fitzsimmonsshield)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agents of SHIELD, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on a Musical, Crossing Timelines, Experimentation, F/M, Ficlet, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Not A Happy Ending, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Sad, The Last Five Years, angsty, canon waaaaay divergent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitzsimmonsshield/pseuds/Fitzsimmonshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An illustration of the construction and destruction of the relationship between Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. Based on the musical The Last Five Years</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> \- I based this off the musical The Last Five Years. You do not have to have watched it to understand how this works, but basically with Fitz' POV I start at the end of their relationship, and with Jemma's POV I start at the beginning. The movie adaptation of the musical is currently on Netflix.
> 
> \- The soundtrack is on Spotify, so I suggest giving a listen to "Still Hurting" with Fitz' POV for this chapter and listening to "Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You" during Jemma's POV.
> 
> \- This fic will be five chapters long. 
> 
> \- Each POV has it's own mini title, which is inspired by the the musical. I also dropped a few dozen hints to the lyrics and themes of the musical, but once again, you don't need to be familiar with it.

**Fitz' POV – At the End of the Line**

Fitz’ hand tucked the lacey curtain behind the nail that jutted out of the wall right next to the frame. The moving van had just pulled up, and getting out of the passenger seat was Jemma, her arms wrapping around her waist, hugging the confines of her leather jacket. Her hair was askew due to the whipping wind, and when she looked up at the beautiful Brooklyn brownstone, she grimaced. Whether it was from seeing him, gawking in the window, or just her thinking that this would be the last time she would walk in these doors. 

Fitz shut his eyes, and slid his hand off the curtain, allowing it to fall back into place. The living room fell back into darkness. He had kept the curtains drawn all week, a vast difference from the house’s halcyon days. Jemma didn’t know it, but he had put it on the market. After she moved out all her boxes, his would be on the front steps as well. 

Fitz slumped over in the corner chair; the one covered in cat hair and tattered with scratches. The cat hadn’t been here since Jemma left three weeks ago, but there was still food in its bowl. He wrapped his hand around a highball of whiskey, he hadn’t bothered digging out the whiskey stones, so the spirit was warm and sticky as he sipped on it. 

Three weeks ago was the last time he had seen Jemma. It hadn’t been an easy past few months, and that night dredged up every crack in their relationship. Fitz could have sworn Jemma had kept a book on his every mistake in their relationship, because that night, with her face-flushed red, she stood just in front of this shabby chair. She dredged up all of his flaws from the day she met him to just the day before, she screamed that his neglect was the final nail in the coffin. Fitz couldn’t look her in the face. Instead, his eyes fixated on the street, the dying light of the day casting long shadows of the cars. He had become so inured, his head clouded with disbelief.

By paying no attention to her, he hadn’t seen her slip the ring off her finger. But when the piece of metal hit him in the shoulder, he snapped back to reality. She was already turning away, stopping only to pick up the cat that had been napping on the floor by her feet, and took the few long strides to the front door. Her hair swung widely behind her and he caught a whiff of her perfume. As she reached for the doorknob, her arm stretching out in the lissome way it always had, she briefly turned to look back at him. Fitz missed this final glance, as his head bowed to search the chair. His hands frantically patted and prodded the cushion of the chair for what she had thrown at him, and when his fingers made contact with the still warm piece of metal. He brought it to his eye level, zeroing in on the diamond, just as the door slammed closed. As the paintings shuddered on the wall next to the door, Fitz scrambled his way to his feet. 

He clambered to the window, barely planting his feet onto the floor. The back of Jemma’s head bobbed as she stampeded down the street. The cat clung to her shoulder, looking back at Fitz. The cat’s face said it all, and in his head he imagined it saying to him how badly he had fucked up.

Jemma didn’t get too far down the street before stopping a taxi. She ducked into the backseat, and upon her instruction, the taxi took off down the street to God knows where. 

Fitz tried to swallow down the increasing lump in his throat. Panic encroached every limb of his body. He palmed the ring, not even the cut of the diamond cutting into his skin could be felt. He wondered if this whole time Jemma saw some obvious way forward that he hadn’t. That he had played into the downward spiral with his inactivity. But he had tried, hadn’t he? 

Fitz unhooked the curtain from its nail.

Had he seen Jemma at this surface level she accused him of. Had he only thought he had seen her roots, when he was still climbing on the branches? Was every conversation they had just a smattering of disconnected words that sounded just about right but really amounted to sprawling a bag of Scrabble tiles on the floor? 

The room suddenly felt abandoned, like it had been stripped of its charismatic wallpaper. Like the garland they never took down from the fireplaces mantle had never existed. He wondered if he could walk through his memories and pick out all these subtleties Jemma had cited.

He wondered if she had been planning this all along, running hypothetical conversations in her head. Perhaps she had molded their demise all along- she had always liked to be in control. 

Fitz slid back down into the battered armchair, the ring still locked in his clutch. The stillness of the room seemed out of place for the discordance of his mind. He did not cry, he did not blink, but sat staring into the expanse of the room.

 

**Jemma’s POV - I Have Been Waiting for You**

This wasn’t something Jemma ever did. She was hanging on the single fraction of a moment where he had passed her a beaker in class. Their fingers brushed against each other. They both went to apologize. And there was that moment, that singularly beautiful moment. Her eyes locked into his eyes. A shiver erupted from the base of her neck and rippled to her lower back. All from a single glance. She knew she was helpless.

She fumbled taking the beaker from his hand, continuing to profusely apologize. But once it was secure, and she was back to her side of the lab table, she tried to keep her head down and focused. She stole a sideways peek at him, nose-deep in his work, his eyes focused on measuring the exact fluids. She bit her bottom lip. An electrifying pang in her stomach nagged at her, causing her hands to tremble as she tried to pour her own chemicals. 

Jemma couldn’t pinpoint what exactly about this man and this moment made everything else in her life feel so inconsequential. If she had been asked what’s her favorite memory at the exact moment, she would excitedly gush it was the moment he looked at her. Because he hadn’t just looked at her, she could swear on that. His eyes saw her, saw the complexity of the life she lives in her head. This wasn’t just any innocuous moment to let pass by. 

So, when it was time to clean up the lab at the end of class, she tapped him on his shoulder and presented to him the crux of what would mark the beginning of a new world. 

“Would-you-like-to go-out-to-dinner?” the words spewed out of her mouth like lava erupting from an elementary school science fair volcano project. 

She watched as his eyebrows rolled up high. She smiled, nervously.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Dismayed, but not downtrodden, she answered him. 

She could swear that he ingested her name like one does smelling their favorite flower. 

“Leo Fitz, but just Fitz,” he responded, passing out a hand for her to shake. 

Jemma began to second-guess how this conversation was going. She went in so confident, the way she attacked everything else in her life. But he had unraveled a stitch or two, effortlessly causing her to wonder if what she had felt had been true.

With less enthusiasm, she slid her fingers swiftly in his palm to grasp his handshake. She concentrated on the warmth of his hand, how it seemed to fill up every corner of her body. Her feet didn’t feel attached to the floor anymore. And his smile, a panacea for the second-guesses corrupting her mind.

She nearly missed his confirmation to her dinner request. His voice flowing into her ears so mellifluously it sounded more like a song. The plans were made, and pretty soon they were two Ph.D. students, clutching the stems of wine glasses. Jemma could swear that across the table she could see the spark in his eyes, too.

Jemma normally didn’t do anything like this, but after their magical dinner she found his hands placed on her hips as her hands trembled to get the right key in the door. Once in the door, the consummation of their incipient relationship was imminent. 

Waking up the next morning, Jemma laid tucked into the side of his body. Her head bobbing along to his inhales and exhales. She relished the silence of the room, and careful not to wake him just yet, tilted her head ever so slightly to absorb him. Everything down to the way his mass of honey-colored gossamer hair caught the sunlight trickling in through her tiny apartment window excited her. His lips, a lighter pink then they had been the night before with red wine coating them, were relaxed. She smiled playing back the moments of the night before, with those lips pressed up to her skin. 

And suddenly an epiphany that hollowed her out. Her gut wretched with the feeling of homesickness, but instead of missing the green fields of England she grew up on, she was imagining a quaint New York City apartment. The sound of cars honking on the street, and she’s curled up with him on a couch. They’re reading poetry together. There’s two cups of tea steaming on the end table. There’s a blanket spread across both their laps, and the curtain over the window is wide open, where Jemma could stare at the tranquility of snowflakes getting stuck to each other. She was homesick for a moment they’d likely never share, especially given that he had turned out to be a one-night stand, which she swore she never did.

Not too long after, he was awake and she watched from the bed as he put his pants back on. She found herself to her own to feet and pulled on a floral robe. She asked him about breakfast. He offered her an earnest smile and said he had work to get to. Deflated, but trying not to let herself unravel, she walked him down the three flights of steps they had clambered drunkenly up the night before. 

Before stepping out into the day, Fitz pulled her into a kiss. It sent Jemma to the stratosphere, confirming that he desired her beyond the morning. A pent up fear she had that she had ruined the possibility of them released in the tender way he held her. He gently pulled away, and his eyes scanned over her face. 

“Goodbye,” he said, his voice breezy. He gave her hand a squeeze before exiting her building. But she pushed through the door a moment after, just to watch him stroll down the street.

“Until tomorrow,” she said under her breath, her hand clutching the railing to the steps.

When Fitz was halfway down the block, her hand loosened its grip. Her whole body felt warm, like everything she had ever worked towards in her life found their meaning. And it was that silly boy with honey colored hair and trembling hands that found their way into her heart. She had shown him more of herself then she was sure she had shown most people. The fear of her never getting to do all the things she wanted to do in her life seemed stripped away. There was no longer a hunger to experience the whole world, because he had just become her whole world.

 

Jemma knew Fitz was the bridge at the precipice of her life. And she would be waiting for him, here on her doorstep, in the lab, wherever she would need to be to be with him. 

When he was just far enough out of sight, Jemma recoiled to lean against her building. She wrapped her arms around her waist to ensure her robe was secure, and looking up at the pleasant blue sky above her, piped out a praise of him coming into her life.


End file.
